Room Camp – Ep. 12 (END)

Well, I was slightly off with my prediction. I mean, the club does spend the time in the storage closet but they start their “camping trip” on the school yard, cooking some marshmallows. I can’t believe I forgot about that place. That’s the girls’ go-to place after the storage closest. Regardless of details, we do come back to the show’s namesake, thus bringing it back full circle. I refuse to believe the girls are camping there for fun however. They’re totally short on cash right now.

You’d think the club would ask Toba-sensei for clearance but she’s seemingly nowhere to be found. She’s probably out getting drunk for all we know. Instead, we have Oomachi-sensei, the school’s hiking club instructor, giving the club permission. Remember him? I completely forgot about this guy. I’m surprised he’s making appearance here…and that he gets to reappear and not Chikuwa.

The girls having a fire on school grounds doesn’t surprise me. I checked Season 1 and sure enough, they have Oomachi-sensei’s permission to do that. Staying at school for the night actually feels more of a stretch. I’d imagine you’d need need more than teacher’s permission for that. Maybe Oomachi-sensei was willing to stay the night to check in on them or perhaps someone on patrol was filled in. Either way, the girls must be asking awful lot from the faculty. Maybe the Outdoor Activities Club is actually the School Living Club (minus the you-know-whats of course) and we just don’t know it.

Some bits of dialogue elaborate on Chiaki and Aoi’s decision to create the stamp rally. All the information revealed is stuff that’s been implied earlier in the show but the complete confirmation is nice. I certainly don’t mind these two fully admitting that they ran out of locations to pick for the whole adventure. At least they’re aware of it.

If Chiaki and Aoi struggled to pick places, how well do you think Nadeshiko will do? Yes, at the end of the episode, Nadeshiko decides to hold her own stamp rally. A pretty impulsive move, what with the stamp sheet being much larger this time around and the fact that any place Nadeshiko thinks of is going to be ones she’s been to before. But no matter, the others don’t seem to mind and I think this makes for a nice moment to cap the show off.

And with that, we’ve reached the end of Room Camp. There’ll be a bonus OVA episode starring Rin (yes!) on May 27 but that’s about it. While obviously much shorter and less versatile than its mainline counterpart, I had fun watching this. It’s a nice appetizer before we get to Season 2…in January 2021. Yes, that got announced the same day this finale aired. I’ll admit that the release window is much farther in the future than I expected. I was really hoping for October 2020. But whatever, I can wait. Plus, given the setting, having Laid-Back Camp consistently air in that time of year does feel very fitting.

2 thoughts on “Room Camp – Ep. 12 (END)”

Season 1’s finale is very hard to top. It worked so well as a conclusive ending before all the new projects got greenlit. I didn’t hold my breath for this episode since it’s only three minutes long but I agree, it’s still a fine exit.